


The Killer and the Bluff

by vallennes



Category: Red Dead Redemption
Genre: Action, Adventure, Explicit Language, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Romance, Slow Burn, Treasure Hunting
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-07-13
Updated: 2016-07-14
Packaged: 2018-07-23 21:00:10
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 4
Words: 20,341
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7479807
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vallennes/pseuds/vallennes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She's the map, he's the gun. Miranda wants freedom for her future - Jack wants to forget the past. Their partnership begins and ends with finding treasure, but Fate and Luck have hedged a bet against them. Outrun and outgun the insidious gang after them, that's the plan... If their partnership can last.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Hope Unhinged With Fear

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The ghosts of the past still scream loud and she ran away from them. Ran all the way to America. But ghosts linger until they are put to rest, and there is a threat coming that keeps them awake and howling.

_"There is no hope unmingled with fear, and no fear unmingled with hope."_

Baruch Spinoza

* * *

 

I was a prostitute in 1914.

It was the exact thing my sister didn't want me to become.

When the Mexican Revolution came to a screeching halt, and my sister's former lover became president, I traveled back to my homeland to find her.

What I found however, was my entire family dead or missing. Louisa had been killed by the Army while trying to save that good-for-nothing, brutal, bastard of a president, and Father was killed by the Army sometime before her death. My brother and mother were nowhere to be found, and though I searched in vain until my finances were depleted, I found no trace of them or anyone who knew them.

They were ghosts. It was like they never existed.

And suddenly I realized, as I boarded the train that took me to America, that life as I knew it was destroyed.

Before my search for my family, back when a kind man named John Marston gallantly drove me to the docks in Nuevo Paraiso amidst gun fire and crazed soldiers who wanted me dead, I was instructed to go to work in the Yucatan. And there I did work, for nearly a year, until I grew fed up of the conditions and hitched a boat ride back to Mexico.

When I moved to America, I wanted no connection to the ghosts I left behind. I wanted to marry a bureau man in Blackwater, be involved in politics, and become a socialite woman.

My childish sights were washed away as soon as I arrived in that dusty little town called Rathskeller Fork. No Mexican ever became an American socialite.

My circumstances were dire, and I turned to prostitution to find my way north-east to Blackwater. That town was my end game, the goal of my life. If only I could get there, everything would be better. I promised myself I'd prostitute only for a little while, until I could afford a train ticket northbound.

In Rathskeller Fork, my hopes and goals slowly faded as I continued to work in the saloon for months, and instead of moving east, I moved into a little rundown shack known as the Scratching Post by the locals. From the yard I could see Mexico across the San Luis. The place I fought so hard to disassociate from, I saw daily.

After a month in America, I purchased a horse, my __Belleza de la Sierra__ , a beautiful palomino horse. The man I bought her from called her an insult to the Kentucky Saddler breed. She was sickly and had a limp. She couldn't run very far or fast. But I loved her, because she was mine.

Every day I rode her to Rathskeller Fork where I continued my work as a prostitute. As the months passed I eventually rose to become one of the "high-rate hookers," as they called us. We were the ones who had busy nights and regular customers; the girls who didn't have to flirt with men in the saloon to seduce them upstairs. I suppose it meant something that I was at least high-rate. Some other girls thought this entitled them to bragging rights. I didn't really care. Sex was sex, whatever my reputation.

My showgirl name was Annabelle, and in my determination to abandon my Mexican roots, I picked up on the English accents of the gentlemen I entertained, and began changing the way I spoke. I practiced in my off-time. It didn't take long before I didn't sound Mexican.

Instead of being an obvious immigrant to the men I entertained, I soon became known as the "tanned belle." The drop of my accent would surely make my parents and sister turn over in their graves, but it had to be done. Everyone wants an ethnic girl, as long as they aren't __really__ ethnic.

One day a woman came along that we all addressed as "Madam." She said she worked at the Dixie Rose in Thieves' Landing and was traveling New Austin looking for some fresh faces. She was one of the few who picked up on my fake accent and asked me about it. She listened patiently when I told her my story - about the Revolution, about the Yucatan, about turning to prostitution, about changing my name and my story for my customers. She thought I had the makings to become as succesful as her. Maybe oneday I'd run my own brothel, she said.

She was a beautiful woman with a robust and curvaceous body. Her personality was strong yet charming, and many of the girls at Rathskeller Fork fell under her lure. Madam promised us a better way of life with much higher rates for a small traveling fee to get to Thieves' Landing. From the porch of Rathskeller Fork' brothel and saloon, I watched three girls climb into Madam's carriage and head off into the desert heat. Jealously, I wished I was one of them. Thieves' Landing was a short ride away from West Elizabeth and I could walk to Blackwater from there.

As the days drone on, the only thing that kept me from shooting either my customers or myself was the idea that once I had enough money, I'd go to Thieves' Landing to make the biggest profit of all – enough to buy a home in Blackwater.

I didn't dwell on the fact that no man would want to marry a whore, let alone a Mexican whore. If I met any man willing to take me, I already developed a back story for my new self. Each day I'd fill in the details of my new character from stories I heard from the men in the saloon. One time, a man boasted he was from a long line of rich, Dutch immigrants by the name of Koen, and from then on my Annabelle showgirl name began to take root.

Annabelle Koen was born to Mrs Edith and Mr Titus Koen, of a long line of wealthy Dutch immigrants that came to America in 1883. They gave birth to their one and only child in 1896 in a yellow house overlooking Flat Iron Lake near Blackwater. Mr Koen worked as a successful bureaucrat banker, and Mrs Koen was a busy midwife to the ladies nearby. Annabel, at the age of 15, went on a business trip with her father and mother to Mexico, where an unfortunate accident claimed the life of her parents – an accident involving a wagon full of dynamite. She was shipped off to the Yucatan to work and live with her Aunt Odette, a nun trying to teach the Mexicans there English. However, finding sisterhood painfully boring and frustrating, she ran away to America where she had no money and had to result to prostitution.

"Misses?" said the fidgety man beside me who was obviously married according to the tale the ring on his finger told. He held my hand in both of his and I turned to face him, blinking away the sunlight that had blinded my eyes. The dusk light poured into the dusty windows of the brothel and I shifted, the wood creaking beneath my shoes, and smiled at him.

"Darling, you look mighty nervous. Are you alright?"

"Y-yes. I was just saying - I hope my wife doesn't find out. Do you get many married men?"

"Oh Daddy," I crooned, stroking his cheek. I sat on his lap and wrapped my arms around his neck. "I don't ever ask if a man is married or not. But I think if a married man lusts after another woman, that's alright. As long as he's there for his children and wife when he needs to be, it doesn't matter."

Wrong. I didn't think that. But the man laughed, then sighed as if relieved. And that's all that mattered.

"Ma'am, I'm afraid I haven't got any goddamn clue as to what I'm supposed to do with a woman like you."

"A woman like me? What ever do you mean?" I asked.

"Someone so young and dewy." He paused, rubbing the back of his neck. My finger traced swirling patterns in his chest hair, my lips pressing kisses to his neck. "I'm afraid that sounded like I was appraising you like cattle. I mean to say, you're beautiful."

I looked into his eyes and saw honesty and nervousness. These customers were my favorite - the honest lovers. There were all kinds of lovers - the rough, the mean, the abusers, the disgusting, the appealing, the honest, and the sweet. The honest were the ones who came closest to respecting you.

"Just relax darling. Let me do all the work."

In the middle of the week, when business is none too high because the cattle hands and miners haven't been paid yet, a man came by Rathskeller that caught everyone's attention.

He was broad and tall, with dark stubble and a handsomely proportioned face. His gleaming blue eyes were mischievous and his smile was mysterious. All the girls fawned over him, and when he pulled out a wad of cash as he spoke to the saloon owner, everyone was watching him with hungry eyes.

"Whose gonna be the lucky one to ride __that__ bull?" a girl I knew only as Mary asked.

The man leaned on the bar of the saloon, his eyes appraising us. When that startling blue gaze fell on me I felt... Strange. It was not a lustful gaze, but neither was it placid. There was intensity and interest. I looked away first.

Mary nudged me and said, in her thick Southern drawl, "He's been lookin' at you since he set foot in here."

Unfortunately for the girls, he was not a paying customer and left only half hour after he arrived. Later that night, after we collected our pay from the owner, he told us the man was named Ray Stinson and he had offered a huge lump sum for a couple of the finest girls here.

Apparently, he was trying to round up girls for his new brothel up north in Canada. The owner didn't sell - only because Ray Stinson asked for the best girls here and giving them up would put him out of business.

Riding home on Sierra was surprisingly tiring tonight. Her gated trot was hammering, especially with her limp, and I had to dismount halfway down the road to check her hooves for a lodged pebble.

"Sierra my poor darling," I crooned, patting her flaxen mane as I gingerly touched her limping leg. She had limped for as long as I owned her, an unfortunate accident had caused it according to her previous owner. He told me she was in no pain, but it was an uncomfortable ride. He told me without remorse that his first intentions had been to kill her once he realized her leg couldn't be fixed, but after consideration and a plea from his daughter he decided to sell the poor horse.

"And I'm sure as shit happy he did," I murmured, picking out the pebble from her hoof, "Or else I wouldn't have such a wonderful horse such as you."

She snorted and lowered her head to graze as I checked the rest of her hooves. A chilly breeze picked up, swept northward from the river, and I felt chilled in my riding clothes. My skin shivered and goose pimples formed on my arms as a coyote skittered past, giving one howling yelp as he disappeared into the brush. The night was dead of life and the overcast clouds made it tenfold as dark as usual.

Sierra's skin shivered and I placed my hand on her warm and soft hide.

"Everything's alright," I told her with a pat.

Satisfied that she was good to ride the rest of the way home, I checked the cinch of her saddle to make sure it was still tight.

That's when I saw a rider in the distance watching me.

He was cloaked in shadow. His horse was powerful looking, with feathers above its hooves and a thick, curved neck. The man sitting on him was just as big, just as powerful, and just as muscular.

Fighting the urge deep inside me that told me to run, I swung into Sierra's saddle and prodded her into a walk. Everything felt magnified – the crunch beneath her hooves, the way she snorted and shied. I wanted to tell the world to shut up. I was trying to disappear into the darkness so that the man could not see me anymore.

I knew he was watching me.

Why did I feel terrified?

Sierra's eyes rolled when she sensed my apprehension, and I leaned over to pat her neck. I kept the reins in tight, then changed my mind and loosened them so she could pick her own way home against the cracked and dried road.

A twig snapped behind me and the hairs on my neck stood on end.

"Don't look behind you," I told myself. If I did, I was half terrified I'd see the man right behind me and half terrified I'd see something much worse, like a cougar in mid-leap.

"Fuck," I whispered as I turned to look as quick as possible. The man was still there. His horse was trotting in place, its powerful legs pawing at the earth restlessly.

"Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck," I growled, kicking Sierra into a lope. We got home in half the time I thought we would, leaving the man and his beast behind in the chilly and dark night.

I removed Sierra's tack in two seconds flat and headed in doors with the only thing on my mind being to rest my tired head.

I changed into my nightgown and slid into the ripped and sweat-stained sheets of my bed. Still thinking of the man on the horse, I grabbed my kitchen knife and took it to bed with me. I found it incredibly silly that I hadn't accepted the owner's offer of room and board up there in the safe confines of Rathskeller Fork.

Living at the Scratching Post had been a stupid and rebellious mistake. I thought living on my own, so far away from civilization, would teach me how to survive better. It didn't. It was an awful place to live, even after I fixed it up a bit.

Gaptooth Ridge is known for its lawlessness, and a woman living on her own was just begging for danger. I think I might have thought I was immune to the dangers of wild west living, but after a couple weeks sleeping in the eerie confines of the Scratching Post, I had asked the owner about the room and board he had offered me.

"I'm sorry Anna," he had said though he didn't look a fucker's worth of sorry, "I sold the last room about a week ago."

"Sorry my ass," I had muttered under my breath. Each night I regretfully, woefully and tiredly turned myself to the long trail that led to the Scratching Post. I knew eventually Sierra wouldn't be able to handle the trek. When that day came, I wouldn't know what to do.

At the sound of another coyote yelping, I felt myself begin to relax. My mother used to tell me stories about what she said was truth but what I always took as myth. She said when we slept our souls went to the realm of the dead for a visit.

With a pang of grief, I suddenly wished it were true. At least then I wouldn't feel so alone all the time. I missed them terribly. I didn't even have a grave I could visit. They were just gone. Taken from me. There one day, ghosts the next. If only...

"Madres," I whispered, my eyes opening to the dark, shadowy room. Tears clung to my eyelashes and I wiped them away.

__Clomp, clomp, clomp…_ _

I paused and sat up in bed.

"Sierra?" I called, willing myself to hope that the strange and even clomping of hooves could belong to my very recognizably limp mare.

Suddenly, the wood of the front door splintered from the force of something hitting it. I jumped and fell from my bed, hitting the floor hard.

" _ _MotherMaryDearGodinHeavensaveme__ ," I choked out in one breath as a second blow fell upon my front door. Sierra screamed from the backyard, and I stumbled to my feet and made a beeline for the backdoor.

A third blow fell upon the door and I made the mistake of glancing back and seeing the blade of an axe poking through the wood. Suddenly voices were filling my ears – voices surrounding my home. As I reached the backdoor it was kicked open and a man was standing before me, leering into my face.

"Boss!" he yelled, and I jumped for the window. He grabbed my nightgown and threw me onto the bed, pointing a gun at my head. "Boss!"

The front door burst open and more men streamed into the room. I pulled my nightgown down to my knees and heaved fearful breaths.

"There she is. Miranda Fortuna, at last," said the man who entered. He was broad, muscular and handsome, with sharp, blue eyes… "I knew I'd find you."

It was the man from Rathskeller. Ray Stinson.

"You must be mistaken-,"

"I know who you are," he snapped, lighting up a cigar. "You can stop pretending." His boys jostled around him while he coolly threw his match on my rug that I'd bought only a few weeks before. He stomped out the flame before it caught, but it still left a burnt smear and a hole. I glared at him.

"I am Annabelle Koen and I do not know who you are, and I demand you leave my house at once." I tried to make myself sound brave and strong, but all the men laughed at me.

Ray Stinson took a long drag from his cigar, than he leaned down and blew it in my face.

"I've been hunting you down for months," he said, smoke punctuating his every word. I resisted the urge to cough at the plume of smoke that seared down my throat. "On special orders from your President, Abraham Reyes –,"

"Bastard," I muttered. Ray Stinson paused, his face expressionless save for his raised eyebrows.

"How __do__ you know President Reyes is a bastard?"

"I was calling __you__ a bastard."

Ray Stinson took another long drag. He put his dirty boot up on my mattress and leaned on it, leaning over me, invading my space.

"You do not understand, my poor girl. This is all but politics. Your president has hired my very capable services to find you. You see, he knows what you are capable of, because he knew what your family was capable of. I hunted down each and every one of them, you know."

I froze, my blood running cold.

"I know you were in Mexico a year ago," he said, his voice just barely above a whisper. He said it in such a creepy, 'I've got you' tone that I shivered and looked away. "Looking for your family." He grabbed my chin and turned me to face him. "It really upset the President. He forgot you existed." Ray Stinson paused to laugh. His boys laughed with him. "When you started asking around about the Fortunas, it turned some heads. Silly little girl. The President hired me to eradicate that family, and you shouted from the rooftops that you were one of them."

I felt a tear slide down my cheek. I wish I had enough strength to knock Ray Stinson's hand away from my chin and wipe it off. But I was frozen. And he watched my tear like a predator watching its prey slowly succumb to death.

"But to my pleasant surprise, you weren't rustling up trouble in politics. You were a filthy whore!"

"How dare you –,"

His hand flew across my face and I fell back on the bed, clutching my burning cheek.

"After some negotiations with the Mexican government we came to an agreement. You will be my whore, and I will ensure you never visit Mexico again."

"How—!"

"We will have you chained up. Naked." The men snickered and moved in closer. Stinson took a drag from his cigar and smiled. "The thing is, my gang is in cohootz with both the American and Mexican government. In other words, __you will never be free.__ However, you will be fed, bathed, and looked after. How does that sound? Much better then death, is it not?"

"Never –,"

He reached down and before I could even comprehend what he was doing he extinguished his cigar on my leg. I screamed and pulled away, but he grabbed my arm and tossed me back onto the bed. I hit my head against the wall and my hand landed on something sharp.

"You'll be the first whore in our saloon up in Canada." He smiled as I blinked back tears of pain. "We're hoping to spread our services throughout all of North America and I think you will do the Canadians good with your brown skin."

My fingers closed around the kitchen knife I had stashed there earlier. My leg throbbed and more tears escaped my eyes.

"How dare you," I whispered.

"Will someone shut this whore up?" he snarled, approaching me again and grabbing my arm. His fingers tightened agonizingly and I yelped. "You'll do as I say or we'll take you the hard way. Now get –,"

I swung my fist up and the knife sunk into his eye. I leapt back as he howled in agony. Tripping and stumbling from the pain in my leg, I took this as a chance to escape. Al his men were distracted, yelling instructions and wondering whether to pull the knife out or leave it in. I jumped for the window and scrambled out.

"Shoot her, you idiots!" Stinson yelled.

Bullets fired after me and a searing hot pain shot into my bicep.

Amazingly, I reached Sierra and clambered onto her back. Her eyes rolled in fear but she immediately leapt over the low-lying fence as I wrapped my arms around her neck and willed her to get us away from here. Bullets grazed the ground under her hooves as we tore off into the wilderness.

The bullets continued for what seemed like an eternity after us, until in one instant it all seemed to stop. Sierra's sides were heaving and her breath was struggling. Her limp was as bad as I've ever seen it.

"I'm sorry I made you run so far," I whispered. I unwrapped my arms from her warm neck and opened my eyes, blinking tiredly at the early morning sky. It must have been about 5 in the morning.

We continued journeying until the sun began to rise. A numbness had taken over my body since our escape from the Scratching Post. When I glanced down and saw a bright red river of blood, it surprised me because I didn't feel any pain.

I knew I was in trouble when I began vomiting, but nothing came out after the fifth time yet still my body tried.

In the distance I eventually saw a structure, though I couldn't recognize what it was or where we were. My vision was blurred, the colors all smeared. The world was closing into darkness, and I could feel my body slipping from Sierra's back.

Down, down, down to the ground…

I hit it dully, landing on my arm. More pain, more blood. But I was oblivious to it all.

I blinked up into the sun – or was it the moon? – and saw it shadowed by a man's face.

"Lady? What on earth…,"


	2. The Bold, the Brash, and the Desperate

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Miranda wakes in a strange place, her life indebted to John Marston's son - but he's not nearly as receptive to her thanks as she would hope.

_"The only sure thing about luck is that it will change."_

Bret Harte

_"Nothing is as obnoxious as other people's luck."_

F. Scott Fitzgerald

* * *

 

I awoke with a start, jumping up in bed with my heart ricocheting around my rib cage as I scrambled out of the bed sheets. My legs were so tangled I tripped right into the wardrobe, smacking it into the wall with a loud bang.

For some stupid reason, I looked at my wrists to make sure I wasn't handcuffed or chained. The echoes of that monstrous man's speech were still rolling over in my mind. The Mexican government I once stood up for – my family once stood up for – now had my whole family killed. The man my sister so idolized and worshipped, praying he would deliver us, gave me away so easily to the confines of slavery. I was to be a whore in Canada, a whore to that awful man and his disgusting gang. I was so easily given away, as if I weren't a human being but something owned.

I realized my knees were shaking, and looking around wildly I spotted a window. The sun was up high in the sky and everything was starting to piece together. For now, I was safe.

I could remember getting on Sierra – Oh God, where was she? – and seeing the face of a stranger hovering over me just before I faded to black.

I put a hand against the cool wall and analyzed all of my body parts in the mirror. My arm was throbbing in pain but bandaged, my leg had some ointment on it.

I wasn't in my nightgown. I wasn't in anything at all. I was stark naked. Where was my nightgown? Who changed me? Who saw me naked? Who put me to bed?

My cheeks heated at this thought, knowing that a man had brought me here and had touched me in nothing more than a nightgown.

I knew I was stupid for getting embarrassed about that, considering my job, but in my mind there had been a sort of separation between career and home life. Whatever happened at Rathskeller Fork, it was a dream compared to who I was outside. Annabelle Koen was not Miranda Fortuna.

I heard footsteps outside the door and I scrambled back to the bed, pulling the sheets right up to my neck. The door swung open and a modest-looking girl walked in, smiling at me.

"I'm glad you're up misses. I thought you were damn near Death's door." She put a bowl of sickly-looking food on the table beside the bed and ripped open the white lace curtains. Sunlight streamed onto the patched quilt and sheets and I blinked tiredly against the glare.

"Thank you kindly," I replied, gesturing to the food with as much enthusiasm as I could muster. "Do you know where I am? And who brought me here? I'm so sorry but I am not in my right mind."

"It's no problem at all," she said, lacing her fingers together. "You're in Armadillo, miss, brought in by a kind gentleman who found you near Benedict Point. Got on the train with you an' everything, brought you all the way here."

"And my horse?"

"I'm sorry miss, I haven't a clue about any horse of yours." I blinked back my emotions and smiled at her again, analyzing her young features. She must have been no older than 13.

"Well, thank you. For all your help."

"The man who brought you in is still here, if you'd like to thank him yourself. I believe he said he was heading out on the train to Mexico, so you'd better be quick." She paused, eyeing me. "I'll get you something to wear. Your nightgown was really something - all blood and muck. I tried washing it but it really is a sight."

"Thank you, but just throw it out," I replied.

The girl opened the wardrobe I had bumped into earlier, and as she rummaged around I realized I had left a crack in the wall behind it. I swallowed quickly and practically snatched the clothes she handed to me – A God awful looking green thing that I suppose used to be a dress once upon a time, but now looked like a sad sack of potatoes.

"Thank you," I said again. She left and I changed in a hurry. She hadn't given me any shoes so I took the liberty of going through the wardrobe and picking out the nicest pair, lacing them on as I struggled to the door. Halfway out, I realized I left the food untouched so I dumped everything out the window and left the bowl on the table.

I headed into the blinding sunlight of the saloon. I almost laughed at the courtesans around me, finding it ridiculous that no matter where I went or in what situation I ended up I was always surrounded by these types of girls – my type.

"Why hello there," one girl crooned to me, taking my wrist in her hand. "Are you alright? We heard all about what happened, how some rogue shot you down and Mr. Marston found you."

"Marston?" That name set off a series of alarms in my mind, and after a moment of wordlessly staring at the woman I realized Marston was the name of the man who had accompanied me out of Mexico so long ago. What an exciting coincidence, that he saved me once again.

I smiled, "I'm alright, thank you," I sad as I slid from her grasp.

I crept down the stairs, my eyes looking for that face I remembered. The scars, the ragged, leathery skin from hard work in the sun, the hat with the feather, the kind eyes – I saw the hat almost immediately, and I headed down the stairs toward him with a bounce in my step. I don't know why.

"Marston! Mr. Marston!" I called. I realized some of my old accent had crept back into my voice and I cleared my throat. The man turned towards me – and I felt a slight disappointment.

It was obviously his son standing before me – similar features, though not quite the same. I walked towards him slowly, eyes raking over his face.

"Hello," I greeted, holding out a hand. He had the audacity to stare at it for a moment before lifting his eyes toward me again. He had a bandanna around his neck, a tan jacket and his Dad's old hat. He was freckled and very young looking, perhaps younger than me. His shoulders were slender, yet he was very tall. I leaned forward until my hand poked him in the chest.

"Hello," I said again, and this time he took my hand and gave it a curt shake, one brow raised as he appraised me.

"Ma'am," he greeted curtly. Then he turned back toward the bar and fiddled with his glass of whiskey.

"I don't know if you remember me-,"

"I do."

"Then I'd just like to say thank you for saving me. It was very kind... and I, I really appreciate it."

"It's what anyone would do, ma'am."

"I suppose." I watched him stare into his glass of whiskey and felt more and more disappointed that this was not John Marston. "You seem disinterested so I'll cut this short. Do you know where my horse has gone to?" I asked, leaning on the bar next to him. I nodded my head towards the bartender in greeting and his face lit up.

"She's still at Benedict Point. A friend of mine is taking care of her. That, or she's wandered off," he said.

The bartender poured me a glass, smiling. "Enjoy the drink, gorgeous," he said.

I took the glass and swallowed it in one gulp. It burned my throat in such a pleasant way. As the bartender poured me another glass, I really hoped he didn't expect me to pay for this.

"I'm Annabelle Koen," I said, facing Mr. Marston. "I think you should know the name of the woman you saved.

"Jack Marston," he replied, lifting his gaze to barely meet mine. His eyes rested somewhere on my cheekbone, before hurriedly going back to his whiskey. "And I save enough women that your name will be forgotten by tomorrow."

The clock chimed and he rose from the stool, dumping a wad of cash onto the counter. He swayed a bit, and I wondered how long he'd been drinking.

"Are you alright?" I asked.

"Miss," he turned to me with a troubling smile and his honest eyes looked dark and daring, "I'm real happy you're happy I saved you, but I think it's time you took your leave from me. Not because you have to, but because I want you to."

"We've hardly had a conversation," I said, taken aback. My hand flew up to my chest as if warding off his insult from my heart. He turned his back on me and strode out the door. The audacity! What a man, addicted to the drink, insulting to the thankful.

I followed him until I stood on the edge of the saloon porch, my pride curled at my feet and whimpering.

"Some man!" I called after him. "Saving people just to insult the likes of them."

He didn't look back, just kept striding toward the train station. I wanted to throw something at the back of his head, if only to make him stop ignoring me. I growled and stomped my foot, yes, like a child. My frustration was rising.

I was about to head back into the saloon, until I remembered there was nothing left for me there. I'd probably have to get on the same train as Jack Marston to get back to Benedict Point, unless I wanted to go back in there and face the bartender's wrath of an unpaid bill.

My pride was pretty much dead and gone as I stalked after Jack Marston. I felt like such a pile of crap, having to stand in the same vicinity as him as we waited for the passengers to unload their luggage.

I let him board the train first, and I immediately regretted this decision when the only spot left was behind a shady-looking fellow in dark clothes with a bandanna pulled up to his nose, or the seat behind Jack Marston.

I sat behind the man with the bandanna.

The train took off and I finally had time to just... Think. I felt a sense of apprehension. t was with only a stroke of luck that I managed to save myself by the skin of my teeth, and most of my survival was thanks to Marston. And what was I to do now? Would that awful man and his gang hunt me down to the ends of the earth, or was he dead? I knew I had stabbed him in the face, but I wasn't sure how extensive his injuries were. Where was I safe? Not Mexico, not New Austin. Where could I go?

No family left to turn to, no one to take me in. Would I just be a rotting corpse on the side of the road by this time next week? Or should I succumb to the task of being a prostitute all my life with that rotten gang. What were my choices? Where would I go?

I felt that same anxious desperation well up inside my chest, threatening to overtake me. What if I just rode the train for the rest of my life? What if –

"Drop to the floor! This is a robbery!" the man with the bandanna yelled, rising to his feet and pulling out a six-shooter from his holster. For a moment I just gaped at him – I was so close I could smell the leather of his chaps, the dirt and dust on his clothes and the tobacco on his breath. I could see the glint of his silver gun shining in the sunlight, the wrinkles on his face.

And I almost threw my hands up in disbelief.

Another brush with danger? __Another one?__

"God, you must be toying with me," I whispered as I clambered toward the floor. I felt a hand grab the back of my dress and heave me back up. I was spun around to face the other passengers and a cold gun pressed into my temple. With a start I realized two men were pointing guns at the bandanna-wearing fiend – __at me.__ He was using me as a human shield.

"Don't waste your bullets or this broad dies!" he yelled, pointing his gun from one man to the other. Jack Marston was one of them. "All I want is your money and your goods. Put them on the floor by your feet and back away."

A woman in tears did as he said, but no one else moved. Jack Marston's gun safety clicked back and he closed one eye, aiming.

"Don't tell me you're honestly going to risk it!" I shouted. "You bastard, don't you dare try and shoot him!" I screamed.

"Listen to her. Boy, you don't even look old enough to handle that thing. Why don't you put it down. Just do as I say."

The other man lowered his gun.

"Atta boy. Put your things on the ground, all of ya."

The passengers did as he said, but Jack Marston remained, his gun trained on the felon. He hid behind me like a coward.

"Put your gun down, Marston," I hissed.

"Shoot him!" Another passenger yelled over me.

"Yeah, shoot the bastard!" someone else said.

"Shut the fuck up!" the bandanna man yelled. The woman who'd been crying now stopped, her eyes wide.

"No, just do as he says!" she said, tugging at Jack Marston's sleeve. He remained motionless. "I don't want any trouble," she sobbed. "I just want it to be over."

"Shut that broad up an' shoot him," a man said. "I gots to be in Perdido by tonight and I don't feel like bein' robbed."

"No-!" the crying woman said.

"No!" I mirrored. "Bastard! Bastards! __Bastardo! Vete a la mierda!__ All of you!" I cried. I could feel the hatred welling up inside my chest, feel it burning my skin. What were the chances of being put through this, twice in less than a day? Was God that determined to kill me? Was it my time to go? Was it –

A gunshot sounded and I gasped. I could feel warm liquid running down my side, down my arm. I knew it was blood before I looked…

The thud of the man hitting the floor made me jump back, heart pumping and breath rushing out in high-pitched gasps. I was covered in his blood, and his mutilated form on the ground – shot between the eyes – made me back up.

Everyone started cheering and I turned, watching as several men shook Jack Marston's hand in congratulations, complimenting his sharp shooting ability.

And I stood there, covered in that man's blood. Didn't they care?

After the train stopped, I just kind of sat down on the ground by the train tracks and waited for them to get rid of the body and clean up so we could continue on our journey. The sheriff didn't even show up – no one cared. The dead man was just a criminal. He wasn't even buried. They just left his body there to be collected later on.

The sun was setting and my left side was all wet from the man's blood. It was cold against my skin now and I just couldn't wait to get back home and change.

"You have God awful bad luck," Jack Marston said. His eyes were teasing. I blinked at him in surprise, watching as he put a cigarette stub out under his boot.

"I was just thinking the same thing," I said, rising to my feet.

"So this one was a robbery. What did the other one want?" he asked.

"What other one?"

"The one who shot you last night. I know a bullet wound when I see one - I've had my fair share. I didn't rescue you for no reason, ma'am, so why are you going back to where the trouble is?"

"I'm going back for my horse and- Why are you here?" I asked, frowning at him. "Why are you talking to me?"

"You look down and outta luck. I have a soft spot for women who look all hurt."

"I don't need your sympathy," I said, getting to my feet, "Or your attention. As you said before, why don't you take your leave from me?"

I headed toward the train when suddenly shots rang out once more. I looked to my right, where the shots came from, and saw the conductor fall dead to the ground.

Jack and I both jumped, watching as the conductor's body hit the side of the tracks with a dull and dead thud. To my surprise, the woman who had been crying earlier about handing over her valuables to the robber held a smoking gun in her hand, aiming it directly at Jack through the conductor's window.

"You wanna try your luck, boy?" she drawled, ducking beside the wall so all but the gun and her hand were hidden. "I'll shoot 'em if you don't drop your guns."

I heard Jack make a sound beside me, kind of like a __pfft__. He was poised stock still, hands unmoving at his thighs, but his chest was rising and falling rapidly as if all the thoughts in his head needed more air to blow through. I blinked up at him, my mouth hanging open in disbelief at the events taking place. Now what would the amazing John Marston's son do?

The innocent people she was aiming her gun at held stunned looks on their faces, lifting their hands into the air slowly as if they didn't want to startle her into pressing the trigger.

"Too fucking slow!" the woman screamed, and the gun went off with a resonating bang around the canyon walls. One of the passengers fell, a bullet between the eyes just as Jack had done earlier. It was the man headed for Perdido, who had no time to get robbed. Now he had all the time in the world. Or none. Depending on your view.

The other passengers jumped back. Some started to sob, pleading Jack to put his guns down. I leaned forward, gaze darting from the woman to Jack. His Adam's apple bobbed but he stayed stock still. He had to be planning something, right?

"He was your partner, wasn't he?" Jack called to her.

The gun swung to Jack and the woman's face appeared from the window, aiming down the barrel, a tongue poked out between her lips in concentration.

"You played the crying wench to lead the others into giving up their valuables while he did the hard work."

"Shut up."

"You never expected him to hesitate so long in shooting the innocents. I'm sure others have held a gun to him, but he always shot them dead first, didn't he?"

"Shut up boy," she said. She took shot the gun. It missed. Jack was to far away for her revolver to be accurate.

"But he never went up against a Marston before," Jack said. "He didn't have a chance." And in one swift motion, Jack pulled his revolver from his holster and was aiming it, probably perfectly in between the woman's eyes.

"You think you're slick?" She ducked behind the conductors wall anyways, tucked safely out of sight, gun aiming back at the passengers.

"Tell me why he hesitated."

She was quiet. Then the train's engine hissed and it surged forward. Before it could pick up much speed, Jack lunged for it, scrambling on board just behind the coal cart.

And really, honestly, truly, deeply, if you asked why I followed him, even on my deathbed I could not give you an answer. It was instinct. I don't know what else it could have been. I saw him go and I felt the urge that I needed to be there too. Was it fate pulling me to my destiny? Was it my inexplicable stupidity to be around danger at all times? I don't know. I don't even remember making the decision. All of a sudden I was gripping onto the ladder on the side of the train, beside the box cars full of luggage.

The train picked up speed fast, racing towards Benedict Point. We must have been going full speed ahead.

I scrambled from the ladder to the box car, landing with a thud. Glancing up through the passenger cart and toward the front I could see Jack was crouching behind the coal cart, gun in hand. They didn't know I was here.

I crept forward, keeping to the shadows of the passenger cart until I was by the front doorway.

"YOU KILLED HIM!" the woman screamed, her voice carrying over the rushing winds and sounds of the engine. "He was going to be a father!" Her voice was an almost inaudible sob.

My eyes went to Jack. I crouched down to his level so the woman would not see me at standing eye-sight level if she were to glance behind her. I peeked out and saw him staring at his gun.

"He shoulda picked honest work if he wasn't prepare to lose everything he had," he said, rather then yelled. It was a phrase that strangely sounded rehearsed. Jack's eyes went to mine, but they were glossed-over and emotionless. He didn't seemed surprised at all that I'd followed him.

"YOU MURDERER!" the woman screamed, over and over again. With two fingers he gestured for me to crawl towards him, which I did. He passed the revolver into my lap and withdrew another, smaller, from his left holster.

"You know how to work one of these?" he asked, leaning close to me so only I would hear, but he still had to yell it to be heard over the wind. We were going so fast...

Wait.

"Are you expecting me to enter gun battle with you, Mr. Marston?"

"Do you know how to use it or not?" he countered with a frustrated frown.

"No!"

"Well," He shifted his weight onto his heels and crawled to the side of the train, gripping the stairs. "Maybe one day I'll teach you. For now, just shoot." And he disappeared over the side, crawling forward beneath the train so as to remain unseen.

I pounded forward on my hands and knees to watch him traverse the dangerous trek. He was edging toward where the woman was by using the pipes beneath the train to shimmy along.

And he wanted me to shoot? I stared at the gun in my hand. The woman didn't know I was here. She'd think it was him shooting, still from behind the coal cart.

I felt my heart jump into my throat but I gripped that gun, aimed it for the sky, and pulled the trigger. And though I was afraid, God knows I didn't hesitate not for one second.

The woman returned fire instantly, as if she'd be waiting for this moment. The bullets ricocheted off the passenger cart in front of me, each __ping__ making me flinch.

There were only six bullets, five for me now with no extra bullets, so I waited for her to get through her 6 and reload so I could shoot again. Otherwise she'd see me aiming at nothing, or she'd notice the feminine hand holding the gun, and she'd know something was up. There was a pause and I shot again. I nearly jumped out of my skin when she returned fire almost instantly. She was fast at reloading, it must mean she was a good shot too.

"Hurry up Marston," I whispered, my breath carried away with the wind. The woman paused again, and I returned fire. How long was it going to take Marston to reach her?

She returned fire again. How many bullets had she wasted now? More then 12, for sure.

Then, in those few second intervals where she reloaded, I was about to return fire when I heard another gun go off, one that sounded completely different. My heart was pounding faster then a rabbit's.

"It's safe," Jack called, as if I couldn't see that for my self. He put the train's brakes on, slowing us as we came up to Benedict Point.

"You killed her?" I asked, but it wasn't a question. It was a statement - an accusation. I stared at him, stared at the slumped body he was straddling to get to the inner-workings of the train, then back to him. "She was pregnant."

"So what?" he asked. "So goddamn what? The child of two murderers."

I was done fighting, and if I wasn't I would have told him he was a murderer too. But I'd seen enough death for today, and I'd been through enough recently. I was almost home to the Scratching Post and yet I felt apprehension about returning. Stinson would know where to find me. Where would I be safe? Where could I go? What would I do?

My eyes fell to the gun in my hands as the train surged to a stop. Jack Marston leapt off in a carefree bound and strode into the station. I followed him, but only after letting my mind hesitate on the gun again. I felt the weight of it in my hands, felt the coolness of the metal on my skin. I could faintly smell the smoke that had all but blown away on the breeze. It felt... I wouldn't say it felt good, but it did feel right.

I entered the station. Jack Marston was explaining what happened to the train station clerk. He proposed the authorities be alerted to identify the bodies along the train tracks and to pick up the passengers stranded halfway between Armadillo and here.

I waited for him on the bench inside the station. Unless he was a saint he'd be wanting his gun back. And I was definitely wanting my horse back.

He strode towards me when all was said and done, that same scowling-blank gaze on his face. It hit me again to see how similar his and his father's faces were. It was a bitter-sweet pang of memory that I shoved aside almost as fast as it had come. But his face, there was something about it that made me want to stare and look away all at once and I hated that aspect of him. Whether it was because his father's face reminded me of the last moments my family were together or something else, I didn't know.

I passed the gun to him and he tucked it into his holster.

"I appreciate your help today," he said.

"Jack Marston," I replied, "I believe we need to talk."

"I believe we don't unless it's about that horse," he said, turning for the door. I followed, my heels clacking against the wood.

"I knew your father," I called, the door swinging shut behind me. The chilly wind swept through my hair and only reminded me of what little layers I was wearing and how cold it had gotten with the sun behind the hills.

Jack stopped but he didn't look at me.

"John Marston was a good man. A brave man," I said with a step toward Jack. "You look so much like -,"

"Don't talk about my father to me," he replied, and began striding away again. I ran after him and grabbed his coat sleeve.

"He saved my life -," I began.

"You think I don't know what you are?" Jack asked, leaning down to my height so he could look me in the eyes. "You're a prostitute named Annabelle. And if you're one of the whores he had -,"

"No!" I gasped, a hand flying over my mouth at the vulgarity and hatred in his voice. "I'm not a prostitute. Your father saved my life while I was in Mexico. He took me to the ferry when the Mexican army wanted me dead."

He stopped. It wasn't a lie exactly, so that meant I shouldn't feel bad over it. Right?

"Your face... You look so much like him," I murmured. His eyes darted to mine, boring into them with a mixture of emotions that were at war with each other. Anger and sadness, happiness and hatred. He turned away again.

"Your father saved my life, and you've saved mine," I continued. "And I haven't been the nicest lady about it. I'm sorry for treating you so terribly, Marston. I deeply apologize."

He looked at me.

"Your apologies are god awful and you're excused from apologizing to me ever again," he said. And then he... Well, it was almost a smile on his lips. I sighed out the breath I'd been holding and followed him as he walked across the yard to a small pen that had been built. I saw my Sierra immediately and my smile wouldn't go away as I sunk my hands into her warm fur.

"Safe and sound," Jack said, "As promised."

"I can't make out if you're a good guy or bad guy," I said, kissing Sierra on the nose,

"I don't think any one man is either good or bad," he replied.

I caught his eye again, yet for some reason I couldn't hold it. I turned my gaze back to Sierra, rubbing her nose and feeling the whiskers on it. "I was wondering something."

"Okay?"

"I haven't got any money on me, but I'd love to have a drink with you. Just to thank you for all the trouble you've gone through for me. I don't... I... Emotions aren't easy for me and sometimes I don't even know when I'm grateful but- but Jack, I am grateful. More so then I think you'll ever know."

I met his gaze. Why did it always feel like he was judging me, or waiting for me to put a gun to his skull? He always had a look on his face that screamed "distrust and resentment."

"Alright," he said.

"We'll drink?" I asked. I couldn't help but smile. Though I sometimes lost myself in the Annabelle persona that had to exist in order to keep me alive, I still had a girl's soul. I still wanted people to like me. I didn't want enemies. Especially ones that could put a bullet between my eyes faster then I had time to blink.

He gestured toward the road. "Let's go to Rathskeller Fort then." I swallowed past the lump in my throat that said this would be trouble and led Sierra out of the pen. He didn't know I was a prostitute there. I could refuse to go but...

I looked at him as I smoothed my hand over Sierra's back and sighed. I wanted him to like me. But he didn't know I was a prostitute. Taking him to Rathskeller Fork would be trouble.

"Actually, I changed my mind. I can't drink with you. I've got to go home and change and -,"

Jack whistled. When I turned, all the horses had come jostling toward the fence. He led one out, gave it a pat, and told me his name was Nero, an American Standardbred his father had caught in the wild. I gave the horse a pat and laughed when he bumped his nose against my hand.

Jack climbed on bareback, and I climbed on Sierra bareback too because her tack was at home.

"I guess I'll walk with you back to your place," he said. "Since the train is out of a conductor."

I laughed, then stopped. My hand flew up to my mouth. "Oh my God, I laughed. How horrible is that?"

He smiled, looking at his saddle horn as a way of hiding it. I thought I heard a chuckle.

"You are something," he said. "It takes seeing some evil things to be able to laugh at something like that." His eyes raked over me. "And to be fine riding home wearing someone else's blood."

"I'm not okay with it. I just don't have a lot of options at the moment."

"How about you meet me at Rathskeller Fork, after you clean yourself up?"

"I don't know-,"

"Come on. I'm offering to buy you a drink."

" _ _A__ drink? Honey, I could out drink you. I bet you every dollar you got I could out drink you."


	3. Coerce and Force

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A map is found and a gunslinger is reluctant to help. Lies are uncovered and truths are told.

_"Coming together is a beginning, keeping together is progress, working together is success."_

Henry Ford

* * *

 

"Why Annabelle dear, isn't this a pleasant surprise?" Mary drawled. She was leaning against the bar, arms crossed, legs squeezed together with her behind curved outward so as to look enticing to all the men in the saloon.

I cast a glance at Jack, and I pretended to feel nothing when I noticed his eyes dart from Mary to the ground like a shy boy afraid to be caught staring.

"And whose you're friend here?" she asked, standing upright and holding out a hand. Jack shook it curtly.

"Jack Marston," he said, "Pleasure to meet you."

"The pleasure is all mine, sugar," Mary said.

Jack was true to his word and accompanied me back to the Scratching Post. I wasn't surprised that Stinson burned it to the ground.

"What a shit-hole," Jack had said about my property that I paid for with my own money and was quite proud of.

"It was nice before it burned down."

Along the way home, I kept my eye out for Stinson or his gang but I didn't see anything. He must be down for the count, what with his eye all... stabbed.

After looking through the wreckage and finding nothing, we decided to head to Rathskeller Fork. Which, I hadn't any idea how to keep Jack from knowing I was a prostitute there. Would it matter if he did know? Why did I lie about it in the first place? Because I'm stupid, that's why.

"We all thought you were gone for good," Mary said to me, "What happened, baby? You look worse for wear."

"It's a long story but firstly I have to know - did the man, the good-looking one from a few night's back who wanted to buy up a few girls, did he come back here?"

"No honey, he was gone as quick as he came."

Jack's eyes caught mine over Mary's blonde head. She was a short thing, and I was rather tall. He had a questioning look in them, but what the man had said... All those awful things he threatened to do to me were too shameful to repeat. What could I tell him, anyways? This was my problem alone to bare.

"Have you seen him since?"

"Relax Annabelle," she laughed, "Why are you so worked up?"

"He's the reason I was gone," I replied. "I... Just need to know." She looked at me with such big, caring eyes that my shoulders sagged and my gaze went to the floor. "But anyways, that's a story for a different time." I let her catch my eyes flicker to Jack and she nodded slowly, catching on that I didn't want him to know about it.

"Can I offer our guest here a drink?" she asked, changing the subject.

"He's buying." I added, smirking at Jack when he shot me a glare.

"Two whiskeys," he said, sitting on a stool by the bar. Mary gestured to the bartender and he filled our glasses.

Jack took a sip. I downed it. He watched me down it, then downed his own. I wasn't going to play games with him. This was a battle of wits and he'd find out quickly how far I could go.

He gestured to the bartender for another two whiskeys. While they were being poured, I glanced around. The girls were acting no different and everything seemed so normal here. Yet I felt completely changed. I had to become a fugitive now, less I be caught by Ray Stinson. And what could I do? I felt, once again, the cold fear creep in. The whiskey was placed in front of me and I downed it in one gulp.

"Damn," Jack grunted, downing his.

"Annabelle's a drinker," the bartender said with a laugh. "Another?"

"Keep 'em coming," Jack replied with a nod.

"Are you working tonight?" the bartender asked casually. I shot him an accusing glare, but he only stared at me blankly.

"Uh, no. That's why I'm here. Enjoying my time off. After getting shot and all." I gave the bartender a look.

"Where do you work?" Jack asked.

"The... Mines."

"Really? They hired a woman? Not that there's a problem with that it's just..."

The bartender was watching me, painfully unamused.

"... Strange, I know," I continued for him, nodding my head.

Another whiskey. Another down. I wanted to chase away the fear I felt with the happiness of getting drunk. The fear was still there, in my heart and soul. I couldn't stop thinking about it. I wanted my worries to go away but I hadn't an idea or a plan of what I would do once the morning came. Would it be better or worse to turn myself in to the Mexican government? They would kill me, surely, but was that better then becoming a sex slave? At least as a prostitute I made money. I had some freedom. I could go where I pleased. Ray Stinson didn't want me for anything but my services, and he wanted them free.

And suddenly, an idea popped into my head of where I could go.

"Thieves Landing," I whispered.

"Pardon?" Jack asked. I looked at him, stunned. Could Stinson eventually find me there? Maybe. But Madam had offered me welcome to the Dixie Rose, and it was a place I could hide out and make money while I planned my next move of escape from Ray Stinson.

I took another whiskey shot and slammed the glass down on the bar.

Then I looked at Jack. Liquid courage shot into my veins after that round of drinking. I was asking much of him, I know, but it was a manner of life and death.

"I need to go to Thieves Landing, Marston, and I need someone to accompany me there. I would love it if you could see to it. I know I'm asking a lot, but frankly, I trust you more then hired help. You're a good shot, a hell of a shot, and I knew your father was a righteous man. You must be righteous too. And, and well, I... I need to go. It's a matter of life and death for me, Marston, and I-." I stopped babbling and looked him in the eyes. He was staring at me blankly, as if waiting for the part where this would benefit him. I couldn't think of one.

Well, actually there was only one way I could pay him. The one way a woman could benefit a man that required no money and no commitment.

I lunged forward, throwing my arms out to wrap around his neck. I smacked him in the nose clumsily and he reeled back.

Maybe I was a little drunk.

"Oh please, Mr. Marston," I whispered, batting my best bedroom eyes at him, "I would be so grateful." My fingers slid up the back of his neck, into the hair at his nape. It was surprisingly soft. I leaned into him.

The bartender snorted.

Jack peeled my arms from his neck.

"I'm going to assume you're drunk," he said. "Let's cut her off," he said to the bartender, who snorted again.

"Jack," I breathed, wrapping my fingers around his hands as he tried to dislodge me, "I need you."

His eyes went to mine, darting back and forth. His face was stoically frozen, but I saw some sort of flicker in them.

"Annabelle!" a booming voice called. I leaned away from Jack, turning to the booming voice.

The saloon owner, Stanley Deaton, was holding his arms out as if asking for a hug. I fell into them excitedly.

"Stanley! Why, it's so nice to see you."

"Where have you been my loveliest of lovelies?" he asked, holding me out at arms length. "And what are you wearing? Is that blood?"

"Oh Stan - I've had an awful time. I can't work because I got injured and my house burned down so I haven't a thing to wear and- Oh! Do you remember that man, Ray Stinson?" I asked, changing the subject hurriedly just to keep him from asking questions.

"Of course not. I only remember the names of beautiful women, Annabelle Koen," he said with a booming laugh. He pulled me with him around the bar.

"Have a drink on me, for all the horrors you've been through."

"Thank you, Stan." He poured us two glasses of his best wine.

"It's the least your employer-,"

"Ah! So, would you be so kind as to give me something to wear?"

"You have clothes-,"

"Thank you so much, Stanley!" I practically yelled, to drown out his voice.

I saw Jack moving from the corner of my eye. He was pulling money out, paying the bill.

"Where are you going, Jack Marston?" I asked him.

"I think our time is up, Annabelle Koen," he said. "I've got to get going."

"Going where?" I asked. He gestured to the rooms. I was confused for a moment, until Stanley Deaton clapped him on the shoulder.

"Marston! I was wondering who owned that locked up room!" he boomed. "It's a pleasure to meet John's son. He stayed here for a bit of time. Bought that room for a fair price. What a nice man, such a shame about his death."

"Yeah," Jack said, looking away, "Well, I'm spending the night but I'm afraid that'll be all. I'll be gone in the morning."

"Wait Jack, we still need to talk!" I called. "What about taking me to Thieves Landing?"

He was about to speak, but Stanley spun me around with his huge and powerful hands. He leaned down and looked me squarely in the face, shaking a finger in it.

"You don't think about leaving me for the Dixie Rose now," he said, "You're my best whore."

I froze. I couldn't look at Jack. My cheeks burned with shame, and I was glad I heard Marston's boots clicking away from our shameful conversation. I exhaled the breath I didn't realize I was holding, sighing, rolling my eyes to meet Stan's.

"You just blew my cover."

"What?"

I looked at my feet. "He didn't know I was a prostitute."

"Don't tell me you're ashamed to be a whore!" Stanley boomed, for the whole room to hear. I inwardly groaned. My pride died in Armadillo, and my ego was soon joining it.

"No, Stanley," I sighed.

"You're the best whore around!"

"I have to leave here, Stan. That man, Ray Stinson-,"

"Bobby, how much did we make?" Stanley asked the bartender, cutting me off in the way he usually does when he loses interest in a conversation. I prodded his arm, bringing his attention back to me.

"Ray Stinson tried to kidnap me, almost had me killed. He wants me dead."

"Annabelle that sounds all so dreadful. Why don't you spend the night here where it's safe? Stay in Mary's room. We could make double the money if we offer two women for the price of one."

"But Stan, I was shot. I can't work."

"Were you shot in the vagina? Otherwise, I don't see why you can't work."

"Stan," I groaned. He frowned at me.

"I'm sorry baby, but we need the money."

"I...!" I was at a loss of words.

"Go to Mary. Get dressed. And start selling those tits," he called, giving me a shove towards Mary's room.

Twenty minutes later I was dressed in my corset, heels, stockings and garters. My hair was done, spilling over my shoulders in a wave of black, and my makeup wad done up. The entire time I was being prepared by one of the girls, all I could think of was how embarrassed I'd be if I ever saw Jack again.

I decided to give up on ever hoping he would take me to Thieves Landing. I'd just have to get there on my own. I could sell the Scratching Post, and maybe save up enough for the ride to Thieves Landing.

I sighed.

It was well into the night when Mary caught my hand and gave it a shake.

"We have a shared customer, sugarpie," she said. I inhaled deeply. With her words, it felt like a thousand pounds had dropped on my shoulders. It never used to feel so heavy, doing this line of work. Now all I wanted to do was cry, but why?

Maybe Stinson's idea of being a sex slave had turned me off from sex.

We went to Mary's room. The customer in question was named Shep Bundy, or that's what he said it was.

He was drunk off whiskey and high on something. He was talking incoherently about a man he had met that day, an "East man" with eyes like "lines".

"I'll be rich," he purred in my ear as I straddled him. Mary came up beside me, touching my hair, pulling it back. I leaned in to kiss Shep and his mouth tasted awful. He slobbered on my lips, bit them, and groped me like he didn't care. He'd be, what we ladies call, a rough lover The ones who'd rough you up if you didn't set the boundaries.

I pulled back. He grabbed my breasts, then leaned over to Mary and gave her a right nasty kiss too.

"Baby," I whispered, hands sliding down his chest. "Tell me more about how rich you'll be."

"This man, gave me...," he inhaled sharply when Mary's fingers prodded at his belt. "A treasure map. Oh, I'll be rich."

I paused, stared at him. Was he delusional or was he serious?

I helped Mary take off his belt. I slid his pants down past his knees. His hands went into my hair, knotting it up. Mary grabbed him, took him in her mouth. I pulled her hair back and kissed her on the temple, then looked Shep in the eyes.

"Tell me more, honey," I purred. And I wasn't being so innocent anymore.

His hands came up, stroking my cleavage.

"My map..." he said, giving his head a shake as if he couldn't think straight,

"What about your map, sugar? Where is it?" I kissed him, flicking my tongue into his mouth. It was such a wet kiss that when we separated, strings of saliva dragged out between us. I shivered with repulsion. Shep started moaning as Mary's head bobbed up and down faster.

"Oh baby, you're going to be some treasure hunter, huh?" I giggled. I leaned over and licked at him, too. Mine and Mary's tongues touched over his shaft. He gasped in delight.

"That's right," he breathed. I backed up, pulled his pants completely off. As I was tossing it away, I caught sight of a slip of old, browned and ripped paper poking out from his belt loop.

I looked at Shep. He hadn't noticed that I noticed.

"Tell us more," Mary whispered haughtily, coming up for air. Her hand rubbed him in slow, teasing jerks. His head lulled back on the bed.

"You're a mighty impressive man," I joined in, "I can't believe we get to fuck a future millionaire."

"Yes," Mary purred. She stood up and began untying her corset and stockings.

"And what else, baby?" I asked him.

"What else is there?" he countered.

"It's just so interesting to hear," I explained. Then Mary straddled him, took him quickly inside her. Shep moaned in pleasure, hands coming up to her breasts as she bounced and slid on him.

"I'm undressing," I announced, though neither of them paid me any attention. I stumbled backwards and bent over to roll my stockings down, and as I reached the floor I grabbed for the brown paper. It slid out easily from his pants. The sounds Mary was making was enough to cover the rustle of the paper as I stashed it in my stocking.

After Shep had paid us his dues he drifted off to sleep in Mary's arms. Sometimes our customers pay a little extra for that luxury. I left quickly to avoid Shep's detection of the missing map. I went to Mary's room and paced in front of her mirror.

The map pointed to the Great Plains northeast of here. I couldn't make it to Thieves Landing alone. I had no money for a carriage, nor any money to pay anyone to accompany me.

However I did have a treasure map now, which might be enticing enough to convince Jack to accompany me. It was definitely enticing enough to convince someone to accompany me, but they wouldn't be Jack Marston. I wanted Jack Marston specifically. I trusted his abilities. He'd already saved my life multiple times. The Marston name had proven itself to me. I wanted Jack.

I inhaled.

But I had lied to him.

I exhaled.

I exited Mary's room and went for Jack's. His was the 'locked room' us girls had joked about back when times were easier on me. The 'locked room', we'd say, belonged to a millionaire. A handsome one. A bachelor looking for a beautiful wife.

I knocked. No answer. I tried the door handle and it popped open, revealing darkness. The light from the hallway spilled into his room. I took a step in and the floorboards creaked.

I heard a gun click.

I stopped.

"Marston," I hissed into the darkness.

"Annabelle," he replied with a tired sigh. "I thought it was someone else." I could see his silhouette move in the dark. He tucked the gun back under his pillow.

I stood there awkwardly, my hands fumbling over themselves.

"Look, I'm sorry I lied to you about being a-,"

"Don't apologize. I thought I told you to never do that again?"

"I want to."

"You don't have to because you did nothing to hurt me."

"I'm just sorry I lied. I should have been honest. But you accused me of being a whore that slept with your father and I couldn't bare the idea-,"

"Annabelle." I stopped. "I don't care enough about you to give up my sleep for this. I don't care. Do you get it? I don't fucking care."

"You will," I said. "I was only apologizing to get the awkwardness out of the way." I closed the door. Then I went to the candle-holder and lit it with the matches that lay there beside it.

He sighed irritably when the room filed with light. Tentatively I turned and caught him sitting upright in bed without a shirt or a hat and I felt my cheeks warm. His hair was a mess about his forehead, falling into his eyes and sticking up in odd ways. He was blinking the sleep from his eyes, squinting against the light. And his body...

I glanced away. My heart had somehow leapt into my throat and was pounding so hard I was afraid it would burst.

"I need to talk to you about what I mentioned before," I said.

"Ugh" he sighed. "I can't take you there."

"Why not?" I asked.

"There's nothing in it for me-,"

"Aha!" I exclaimed, and leaned over to pull the map from my stocking. When I stood, I saw his eyes flick hurriedly from my own chest back up to my eyes. The room was still for a moment. I knew he was looking. And he knew I knew. Neither of us said a thing. Why was the air so still? Why was my heart pounding?

He was half naked... Heck, he might be fully naked under those sheets. And I was dressed like a girl asking for sex usually was. And it was the middle of the night. And why did it feel so strange? Because he wasn't like other men? Because he didn't want to have sex with me? Because even though many men are cruel, he was cruel in a way that got under my skin?

I took a step back, feeling way too close to him for my own good, and bumped into the mirror.

"Look at this," I said, tossing it onto the bed. He picked it up and raked over it.

"The Broken Tree? The Great Plains?" he read. His face went still. His eyes glazed over. Then he held the map out as if I should take it.

"So if I take you to Thieves Landing, I get this?"

"Half of it," I said.

He paused.

"I can guarantee this is a legitimate map," I lied. "I can guarantee we'll be rich."

"Really."

"It comes from a trusted source. A good friend."

"And he just gave it to you?"

I paused.

"I need to start a new life," I continued. "He understood how important it was. I wasn't lying when I said it was a matter of life and death for me. Some men are after me. They want me dead, or kidnapped. You saw the proof of that. I need to leave Rathskeller Fork because they know I'm here. They know where to find me."

Jack regarded me critically, then he swung his legs out from beneath the sheets and my heart slowed a bit when I saw he was still wearing his pants.

"Promise me," he murmured. "Give me your word that you're not lying." He walked towards me until we were barely half a foot apart.

He stared at me with such intensity that I could not look away. Looking away might mean giving away that I was lying. Was that his game? Was that why he was looking at me with such an electric stare? I held out my hand. His own hand swallowed my dainty one up. I shook it curtly, but our gazes never dropped.

"You have my word, Marston," I bluffed coolly.

"Then I'll do it."


	4. New Friends, Old Friends

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A familiar face returns - albeit a little changed. He's not too happy about his missing eye.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There is lengthy Spanish in this chapter and, like in previous chapters, I do not promise it is accurate - but translations are in the end note. Please keep in mind you are meant to feel like Jack, a non-native speaker of the language.

_"You must not lose faith in humanity. Humanity is an ocean; if a few drops of the ocean are dirty, the ocean does not become dirty."_

Mahatma Gandhi

* * *

 

We had our plan.

I rushed back to Mary's room and stuffed as many of her non-whore outfits as I could into a bag. Most of Mary's fashion sense outside of the brothel was directly opposite of mine. While I liked breezy skirts and riding pants with loose, billowy shirts, Mary liked tight dresses, tight pants, and tight shirts. Tight, tight, tight.

Mary was still asleep with the customer I robbed. I had innocently suggested to Jack that we make our leave immediately - best to avoid any possible future confrontations with Ray, after all!

He agreed and we separated quickly to pack our things. He didn't know I was actually avoiding the wrath of the man I robbed.

"Meet me by the stables in five minutes," he said. I was there in three. While I waited for him, I tacked up Sierra with some of Stanley's prized riding gear. He'd miss it, but I needed it more and I wasn't planning on coming back here ever so, who really cared?

Jack's horse was still tacked. Poor thing. Must be so uncomfortable for him.

Jack approached in the darkness. He was raking his hair off his forehead, trying his best to flatten it. Giving up, he plopped his hat on his head.

I mounted Sierra.

"So you've been to the Great Plains before?" I asked.

He mounted Nero. "I've been there." His voice was short, gruff, and rude. His face was stoic and angry.

So nothing was amiss then.

"It's a long ride, I bet," I said. To make conversation. Jack was having none of that.

"It is."

"How far-,"

"Alright listen Annabelle. Let's set the mood here and draw some lines. I saved your life-,"

"Mhmm."

"- three times? Or is it four?"

"You-,"

"And you lied to me for _no reason_ about being a prostitute. Now I don't trust you. And trust is very important to me."

"I'm sor-,"

He shot me a look. "Will you stop apologizing? And stop-,"

"Okay."

He exhaled, annoyed. He paused for a beat as if to see if I was actually finished, then continued. "Now honesty is important to me, so I'm going to be honest with you, alright? Clear the air a bit, since we're partners now. And in return I'm going to ask something of you. Will you listen?"

"Of cou-,"

"Wordlessly?" he interrupted. I frowned. Lord almighty, Jack was more irritating then twenty mosquitoes. Could he not let me get _one_ word in? I met his gaze, giving him the most sour expression I could muster.

He looked away and sighed again, eyes scanning the horizon. The night was young still, the animals not yet out and about.

"When I first saw you laying in the dirt, in your underclothes, bleeding out, I thought you were the most pathetic thing I'd ever seen."

"Wow."

"So I saved you. Dragged your unconscious body with me back to Armadillo. You thanked me. I left. I thought that would be the end of it. Then you followed me on the train."

"I was getting my horse, not following you." I rolled my eyes.

"Whatever the reason, we were on that train together. And then that bandit was holding you hostage and I could not believe it - you looked even more pathetic."

"Okay.. What- What is this? Are we insulting each other now?"

His lips twisted.

"Then I saved you." His eyes met mine. " _Again_. And then I jumped on the runaway train. And there you were. _Again._ But this time you helped me out. We did good as a team considering we had no plan and no time to think and barely any time to communicate. So alright, I was willing to have a drink with you. Because you helped me out."

"So what was the point of that lovely summary of our relationship?" I asked.

'I saved your life three times. You helped me out once. You lied once. I have more to lose from trusting you. I took the bigger chance here."

"Okay..."

"I need to know if you're lying about this map."

I laughed. It sounded cheap and defensive. "It's real, isn't it?"

He didn't say anything, just stared straight ahead, his eyes slits.

"There are a lot of fake maps floating around, but a lot of real ones too. I just need to know that you truly think this is real. I need to know you're not lying to me to abuse my help."

I swallowed, then realized I didn't _need_ to feel guilty. As far as I knew, this map was realer then the Lord Almighty. Sure, I stole it from a drunk idiot. But the map could very well turn out to be real... No matter how unlikely.

"Annabelle, I just need to know this isn't a hustle from the get-go," he continued. He met my gaze and it startled me because his eyes looked-

Well, not angry. For once.

I nodded, swallowing hard. "It's real." Taking a second to gather my composure, I continued, "I trust my source. My source never failed me."

"Who is your source, if you don't mind me asking?"

"My best customer," I bluffed.

"Ah." Jack shifted, rubbing the back of his neck. "You usually trust your... Customers?"

"Only the nice ones." Shep's face flashed in my mind. He was anything but nice. I grimaced as I remembered Shep's dick, too. That's the thing about having customers. You remember their genitals almost as clearly as their faces. You spend equal amounts of time with both after all, if not more.

"Jack," I began. "I want you to trust me because I trust you and we're partners now, right? Treasure hunting partners? And partners need trust. So I uh, I'm sorry I lied-,"

"Stop apologizing," Jack snapped, annoyed, "I hate that."

"You hate that. Okay, I promise this will turn both our favours to the better, alright?" I met his gaze, and hoped he could see I meant him no ill will. I just needed to save myself from Ray Stinson. And if treasure and riches came out of this journey... That would be only better.

In fact, I realized with a growing smile, my life had never looked better then it was this night with Jack. I was free from the brothel. I was safe with my sharpshooting treasure hunting partner. And we were hunting for treasure! And going to West Elizabeth!

And if the treasure in the Great Plains turned out to be a bust, I was just a short hop away from Thieves Landing.

The world was looking up for Annabelle Koen.

* * *

The world was not looking up for Annabelle Koen.

We stopped for lunch at Ridgewood Farm. I didn't know a lot of my customers lived and worked there. Why the hell were they getting laid at Rathskeller Fork and not Armadillo?

Swallowing lunch, sitting next to all these men I'd fucked, was harder then anything else I've ever had to do. Thankfully, no one brought up my source of employment. But it was the elephant in the room and not talking about it did little to dispel the tension.

I sat along the fireside, with seven gentlemen and Jack. Three of the gentlemen I'd laid with, yet all seven had visited the brothel and all seven I'd exchanged flirts with.

You could cut the air with a knife, the tension was so thick. Perhaps only Jack was oblivious to it all.

Jack was sitting off by himself nibbling on a corn cob. I watched one of the kitchen girls stir the gruel they offered their borders and felt my skin crawl. With a quick glance around - yep, all eyes were on me.

One of the men coughed. I jumped. That made one of them look at me and smile. I grimaced and got to my feet.

"Excuse me," I muttered under my breath, bee-lining for the outhouse. Inside, I laid a hand on my stomach and tried to exhale all the panic and nausea I felt.

"Just get through it. Just survive," I whispered under my breath, shaking my hands out. But there was no denying the dirtiness I felt - the reminder of my life choices.

It had been so easy to separate work from home, Annabelle from Miranda.

All the time I'd spent at Rathskeller had just been for money and nothing else. Now outside of it, I was being hit by all the loose ends of my career choice. The guilt and disgust was an unexpected side effect of the money and glamour of becoming an independent woman.

Sighing, I exited the outhouse none the calmer. There was a gentleman outside.

"Sorry for the wait," I said.

His hand grabbed my wrist and I yelped in surprise.

Immediately my mind went to Ray - was this one of his goons? But he chuckled at my discomfort, releasing my wrist immediately.

"Annabelle Koen, remember me?" he asked.

I blinked at him, mouth agape.

"You sucked my fat dick, don't you recall?"

"I don't."

"That's too bad." He had the audacity to look sad. "Guess there's a lot of other guys, huh? How many would you say you've fucked? Just curious."

"Wow."

"Do you remember my fat dick taking your asshole from behind when I bent you over your couch?"

I turned to leave, but he grabbed my wrist again and slammed me against the outhouse, smiling.

"I wasn't done talking."

"I was."

He pressed his forearm to my throat, his other hand clutching my shirt. My toes were reaching desperately for the ground, but he was practically holding me in the air.

"You look a little rattled," he said.

"That's 'cause... your fat arm is... choking me," I grunted. He squeezed even tighter, pressing on my throat until I saw black at the edges of my vision.

"I want you again," he snarled.

"For what?!"

"Fucking."

"You're insane."

"Yeah, and you fucked this fat cock once before so what's the problem."

"I regret it."

"You took my money all the same greedy dumb bit-,"

"Hey, is there a problem here?" Jack appeared, and suddenly I could breathe again.

I couldn't help it - I was pumped at the sight of him. Knowing how well of a sharpshooter he was, there was a part of me just cheering, waiting for him to whip out that gun and get some sweet revenge. Yes, defend my honour, Jack! You noble son of a bitch!

"No problem," the man said, stepping back. "Just saying hello to an old friend."

"Don't look like friends to me," Jack said.

"I was just leaving."

"Then leave."

"No!" I protested, but the man had already left.

Jack began walking away. I chased after him, tugging at his shirt cuff.

"I wanted to kill that son of a bitch," I whined. "We have history and he-,"

"What is wrong with you?" he hissed, pulling me aside. "We can't just kill everyone who pisses us off, Annabelle."

The day had clouded over, and a distant thunderstorm was looming behind him. The plains smelt of oncoming storm and dew. I shivered, the cool breeze sending goosebumps down my arm.

"Well I thought...,"

"You thought?"

"Nevermind."

"That's what I thought." He turned and stalked off again, took two steps, then stopped. I sighed. He rounded on me again, lecture at the ready.

"We need to figure out how to work as a team," he began. "Everything is-,"

"Is what?" I asked defensively.

"Everything is fucked! I'm still pissed at you for lying! I still don't trust you. The only reason I'm here with you is 'cause I've got nothing better going on. You realize that, right? That you're just a joke to me? Just a side adventure?"

I could feel something inside of me break - I guess the part of me that hoped I wasn't just a joke to be laughed at.

"If you're not having fun, you're free to leave," I said. "I'm the one with the map."

"Fun? What's any of this got to do with having fun? I want money, Annabelle. If I can't get that I'll-,"

"You'll what?"

He threw his hands up and stalked away.

Hunting for treasure seemed a lot more fun in stories. In real life, your partner just wanders off all the time in a huff of annoyance that's barely kept under control.

I stalked off myself, cursing under my breath. I went to the horse coral to stroke Sierra's soft muzzle.

I must have stayed there almost an hour - lolling in Sierra's company, mediating on the better days yet to come my way.

I heard footsteps come up behind me.

"Well I hope you're here to apologize," I said, without turning.

"Doubt zat," said a strange voice I did not recognize, then everything went black.

* * *

I awoke in a bedroom, with my hands and ankles tied together, and the man from before leering down at me.

"Oh, thank god."

There was also a stranger in the room, a terrifying-looking man.

"For a moment I thought you were the other kidnappers after me," I explained.

"You're funny," he said.

"I don't even know your name."

"It's Beau."

"And you are?" I turned to the man I hadn't met before. He unbuckled his belt in reply.

"He doesn't like being talked to," said Beau.

"What is this about-?"

The man's belt whipped out, smacking me across the face. His buckle stung my lip, and I tasted blood, could feel it run down my chin. The pain echoed for minutes afterward.

"Do not antagonize za girl," said the stranger.

"I just need a few minutes alone with her," Beau muttered.

"Zat vas not part ov za deal."

"What are you talkin' about?"

"You ver promised zat only if you could procure za girl without my intervention and you failed, Mr. William. So now you've been cut from za deal."

"But I led you here! I told you where she was!"

"I vas already here, Mr. William. All you did vas pass along information. Now it is time for you to move along, if you know vat is best for you." He slapped the buckle in his palm. It dripped with my blood.

Beau William, a man from my past who I let fuck me, left the room and I was alone with the German.

He was dressed nicely, in a suit that looked rather expensive. His blonde hair was gelled back, slick against his head, and he was tall and tiny. His face was caved in, his big, blue eyes dead and hollow. He looked like a skeleton just barely held together with skin.

He looked like death.

Alone with him, he loosened his grip on the belt buckle, yet his eyes remained froward, trained on one spot only. What the hell, was this guy even human? I stared at him - gaped, more like - until the door swung open.

"Sorry I'm late," said a deep, rumble of a voice.

Ray. Fucking. Stinson.

So it _was_ him.

"Your boss vill hear about zis," the German snapped.

"Yeah yeah," Ray brushed off. He had a fat cigar between his lips and a fancy new eye patch.

"Nice eye patch," I muttered.

"What the fuck was that? I thought I heard a piece of shit talking," Ray snarled.

The German looked annoyed.

"Vhy antagonize her?" he asked.

"Because she's caused a lot of problems as of late."

"Haven't ve all?" said the German as he left the room.

Ray began chuckling as soon as we were alone.

"Did you think you were safe?" he asked, walking around the bed. "Did you think I wouldn't know as soon as you set foot in Gaptooth Ridge? I can smell whore from miles away."

"So you had people on the lookout for me."

"I have people on the lookout for you everywhere, Miranda. You will never escape me. You may outrun me for awhile, but I have eyes, ears, hands and _cocks_ everywhere that will _hunt you down until you are nothing and no one_." I could now hear the unmistakable sound of his pants unbuckling behind me.

I was suddenly acutely aware of how vulnerable I was, tied up like a calf. I panicked, and began rolling, but his hands steadied me.

"Realized it, did you? How helpless you are, and always will be?" His hands pulled off my pants and panties in one fell swoop, bunching them up around my knees.

"Look," he said, finger prodding at my entrance, "Just a plain ol' pussy, same as every other. Yet you think you're so much better." He laughed. His knees sunk into the mattress behind me.

I knew what was coming and in moments like this, when there is nothing to do, there is nothing you can do accept endure and survive.

I could feel calm settle in my bones - it's not like I'd never fucked someone I didn't want to before. This was where I could win. I would not let him have the satisfaction of taking away my power and replacing it with fear.

I was most powerful when I was fucking.

"Just a scared little Mexican girl with nobody left to be loved by, hiding and running away like the rest of her people," he muttered. I could feel the tip of him, prodding at my entrance. My fingers curled into fists as he entered - sharp and sudden - and I swore I would kill him.

I gritted my teeth as he slid deep inside with a grunt. He felt like sandpaper and pain.

His hand wrapped around the back of my neck.

"Beg me to stop," he said.

"No," I hissed. My sight went red with rage. " _I like it._ "

"Gross bitch," Ray said, shoving my face into the bed. He pumped away until he came several minutes later, and all the way I bared it in silence, not ever giving him the satisfaction of a cry or a grunt.

I could feel his residue spilling out of my spread-eagle pussy and every fiber of my being was churning with hate.

He put my panties and pants back on. I could feel the wetness of his residue on the fabric, and it just made me angrier. I could not let my mind wander to the consequences that might be had from his rape.

The room I was raped in was a bedroom in Ridgewood Farm, I learned as he led me from it. The family that owned and lived there had been paid off by Stinson and his gang, it seemed. They had known how this would all go down the minute I walked onto their property and they still let it happen.

Pictures of my face were everywhere in Gaptooth Ridge, urging people to contact a man named Erich Schäfer - the German - upon spotting me. Beau William had been the one to contact Schäfer, all the way back at Rathskeller Fork.

Nowhere was safe.

I was led into a stagecoach and was genuinely surprised to see Jack there, bound and gagged and bloody. His hat was missing, as was his arsenal of guns that was constantly strapped onto him.

"Schäfer's house," said Ray Stinson to the driver. Schäfer himself was in the carriage too, hard to see as he was lurking in the shadows.

"So much trouble for vone girl," he said with a head shake. "Is she vorth it?"

Stinson was looking proud and healed, sucking on a fat cigar. I stared and stared into his face, hoping it would unnerve him but he never looked anything but cheery.

"I don't know about worth," he replied, "But she needed to be eliminated by a big name and we needed some women."

Jack's eyes went to mine. Curious, was he?

"Ve'll see vat za boss thinks," Schäfer said, turning away to rummage in what looked like a woman's bag. "He is usually unimpressed vith messiness. Vhich ve must fix." He produced a vial of pills, pouring two out into his palm.

"Remove ze gags," he said. Ray did just that.

"What the hell is going on?" Jack yelled. Schäfer exchanged a look with Stinson.

"Do you vant another beating?" Schäfer asked Jack.

"Too bad the boss wants him alive," Ray Stinson said. "I'd love to dump his body somewhere the vultures could find."

"Such mindless violence," Schäfer muttered, sounding amused. He held up a pill to the candlelight. "Zis is for you - safe passage."

My eyes slid to Stinson.

"There's no such thing," I spat.

Schäfer gave Stinson a look.

"Vith me zere is. Ozzerwise, ve'll hit you over ze head again and who knows how healthy zat is. Now drink." Somehow, he produced a bottle of water from his bag, too.

Holding the pill to my lip, there was little I could do but accept it into my mouth with a big gulp of water.

Within minutes my eyes grew heavy, and I found sleep.

But the dreams were not pleasant.

I awoke in a bedroom, tied to a bedpost. Guess it was too much to hope for that I'd be free.

Jack was beside me, sleeping soundly, his hair an awkward mess across his face.

The room I was in was lavish - yet not overly so. It obviously belonged to someone with subdued taste yet lots of money.

I wiggled my hands but the knots were tight, so instead I lay there and waited for Jack to wake up. He joined me in the land of the living minutes later.

"How do we get out of here?" I asked, as he yawned. He pulled on his ropes to no avail, too.

"Shit," he cursed.

I sighed. "We need to find a way out, Jack! We can't let this guy win." The panic in my voice was obvious and pained - Jack turned to look at me.

"Is everything...?"

"Just get me out of here," I sniffled. He pulled wildly on the ropes, but they did not budge. Then he used his teeth to try and loosen them. Then he tried to saw them off using the bedpost. Then he tried pulling on the rope with his body until it snapped. Nothing worked.

The door swung open suddenly.

"Velcome to my home," Schäfer said. "My boss has been dying to meet you."

He undid our ropes, freeing us. I took in Schäfer's outfit curiously - he wore fresh clothes, less layers, more colour. He didn't look so terrifying now.

"Why did you free us?" I asked suspiciously.

"Zere is no where to run here," he said with a smile. It was creepy.

I followed Schäfer. There was nothing else to do - and slowly, the realization dawned on me. The style of this house - the ceramic tiles, the rustic, the colours - the heat and humidity. I knew where we were. I knew who his boss was.

The fear I felt was indescribable, like walking up to the hangman's noose.

As we headed through a beautiful library, Jack tumbled, landing ontop of a table covered in books and trinkets.

"Get up," Schäfer snapped, annoyed. "Look at ze mess you've made!"

"I'm sorry, I'm so thirsty-," Schäfer's hand came across Jack's face with a resounding _slap._

"Good zat you are thirsty. Suffering builds character."

Schäfer took us through his beautiful home to the backyard. It was raining, the tail-end of the storm in Gaptooth Ridge, yet I could hear splashing and girlish giggling.

Despite there being desert for miles in every direction, Schäfer's mansion in the middle of the Mexican wild was an oasis.

There were many pools under permanent canopies to protect from the weather - sparkling blue, against the bright white marble fixtures and sculptures. We walked among them like ghosts.

We turned a corner and there he was - splashing about in a pool with a harem of women.

Abraham Reyes.

I stopped. Full stop. But I was shoved forward and forced to keep walking.

_I can't I can't I can't._

" _No puedo hablar con eso rata_ _,_ " I hissed when I was close enough so Abraham could hear. The laughter and chatter stopped and suddenly I was staring at my family's killer - and the man who had set Stinson on me.

"Welcome!" he greeted. "Care to join me in my pool, friends?"

I spat on the ground as he reached for a glass of champagne from the poolside table. He cast me a look of menace.

"Miranda Fortuna," he purred. "At long last." With a wave of his hand he dismissed his ladies.

"You just _had_ to drag me out here," I said.

"To see you for myself, of course! You could have been my sister-in-law. The legend! The beauty! The whore! What's not to like about a woman with those qualities?" He rose from the pool and waded toward us, dripping wet and holding his champagne glass daintily. His hand reached out and grabbed my chin, giving my face a turn. "Not so pretty without makeup, but we can fix that."

I ripped my chin from his touch and glared at him.

"Oh," he sighed, as if I were a precious little girl, "Look - she still thinks she has a choice." His eyes roved over my face, a small, dangerous smile on his lips. " _Vaja disfrutar enterrado a_ _mis hijos_ _,"_ he said to me.

"If I am not already carrying," I snapped, the words feeling like poison.

"That was my gift to Stinson for losing an eye," Abraham said with a laugh. "You cannot blame me for rewarding my man."

"I blame you for stealing _from me_ ," I said. My voice cracked. There were terrifying emotions thundering right under the surface now - long repressed ones that ached to be validated. I was not just speaking about the rape - but the entire genocide of my family. _Why? Why?_ I wanted to scream. _Why them? Why me?_

But thinking about the unfairness left nothing but bitter emptiness.

_"Que es una cucaracha oara un rey?"_

My mouth slammed shut. " _Bastardo."_

He smiled and turned his attention on Jack.

"What do we have here? _Un amante?"_ asked Abraham, with a glint in his eye.

He wouldn't get the satisfaction of torturing a love of mine again.

_"Socio."_

" _No Mexicana,"_ he said, looking surprised.

" _Es el hijo de un asesino,"_ I said.

" _Asesino? Estoy interesado."_ He turned to Jack with a smile. "I was just talking to Miss Fortuna about how lovely it is to see _gringos_ in my land again. I had a lot of help from white men like you. Men without a conscious. That's you, isn't it? Or were all those guns for show? I would not mind. Guns are very sexy! The girls love it!" He laughed.

Jack stared at him.

"You look confused, _gringo."_

"Who the hell are you?" Jack asked.

"It is quite a shame you don't know already. When I was born, the nuns said everyone would one day know my name. And ever since I was a _ninito_ , I vowed to make this come true. So now, you get to learn who I am and help fulfill my prophecy. I have certainly become quite the fan of you ever since you started running around with Miranda.

"I am ex-President of Mexico, the great Abraham Reyes! And this little creature?" He grabbed my face and squeezed my cheeks together. "She is ashamed. Hiding like the rest of her family did before I found them. She is Mexican blood, did you not know? Miranda Fortuna, my beloved Louisa's little sister."

"Until she died for you and you betrayed the people-!" I screamed.

" _I_ did NOT betray anyone!" he hissed, rubbing a tired hand over his face. "There is no loyalty left, you see," Abraham explain to Jack, his voice calm now. He gestured at me as if I were an example. "The people... they do not know how to recognize those who help, and those who harm. They will take my land down a dark path with their _fucking_ ignorance."

"So what happened to the Presidency?" Jack asked.

'It was ripped from me," Abraham said, anger shaking his voice. "But I still have my life, and for that we must be thankful. Always be grateful for the clothes on your back, the food on your table, and the breath in your lungs. Unfortunately this is something many people forget." He gave me a pointed look.

I spat again.

 _"Eres tan estupido como un perro,"_ I snarled.

"And you are a _puta_ and if you don't shut up _te voy a matar._ Okay? I'm trying to be polite here."

"What happened-?"

"Enough questions," Abraham said. "Miranda needs to be handled until she knows not to act up again but as for you, Jack Marston. I have a job for you if you're interested."

"How do you know my name?" Jack asked.

"Accept the job and I'll reward you. Refuse and you die."

"What's the job?" he persisted.

Abraham laughed. "Was my offer not good enough? You get your life, _gringo_. That's all you should care about."

"A man's dignity is worth more then his life. I don't work for crazy." His eyes narrowed.

"Crazy?" Abraham laughed dryly, pointing at himself. "Me? You think I'm _loco_?"

"Yeah, I do."

The smile faltered on Abraham's lips.

"What did you say, _gringo_? I think I misheard you."

"You're fucking insane," Jack said.

Abraham Reyes' hand came up as if to slap Jack.

"Allow me," said Schäfer, who reached his arm back and smacked Jack with all the force he could muster in his small, bony arm.

"Was that satisfying for you?" Jack asked Abraham. "'cause it wasn't for me. I've already been slapped by that guy-,"

Abraham's hand came up, pinching Jack's mouth shut.

"Another word, and my offer is off the table. You can always tell when an America-"

Suddenly, in a flash, Jack's hands were free. He slammed his fist into Abraham's face and I noticed the tiniest of screws wedged between his fingers. I noticed it shortly before it disappeared into Abraham's nose cavity.

While Abraham fell to the floor, Jack turned and pulled Schäfer's gun from his holster, pointing it squarely at his chest. This all happened within seconds, and I was left breezed and impressed.

"Don't move," Jack snarled.

Abraham was struggling on the floor. The nail had sunk through his nostril and traveled up his nose. There was blood gushing in copious amounts, spilling onto the white marble of his patio. But unless he were to die in a few minutes, the damage looked worse then what the wound was.

"Back away from her," Jack said. Schäfer did.

Now free to move, I reached down and pulled the nail out of Abraham's face. It was small - small enough to fit inside a clock, like the one Jack had fell on in Schäfer's library that had been in the middle of a repair, so it seemed.

I looked into Abraham's contorted face as he held his bloody nose.

"We need to go," Jack said. "He doesn't have just one guard hanging around you know. Let's leave while we have the upper hand."

I plunged the nail into Abraham's neck, hardly daring to blink. The gurgling sounds - I smiled with bliss.

 _"Pudrete en el infierno,"_ I said to him.

"No!" Schäfer cried, bolting forward. He shoved me aside and I scrambled to my feet. Jack and I ran for the greenhouse. The entire property was surrounded by a huge brick wall. We either had to climb or find a way through.

"The stables," I insisted. "We're in the middle of the desert. We need a horse. And water. And food."

"Let's just try to escape with our lives, alright?" Jack asked. "We have," he checked the gun, "six bullets and God knows how many guards to get through."

"We won't have lives if we don't get a horse. The desert is endless here."

Two guards appeared from the other side of the greenhouse. We crouched beside a rose bush and waited for them to pass.

As we waited, I could feel Jack's gaze on my face. When I looked at him, his eyes were clouded over and his brow was stitched together.

"What?" I mouthed. He looked away.

After the guards passed, we made a break for the stables. He had only a few horses - apparently all the riches of an ex-President don't stretch very far.

"The white one," I whined.

"The strongest one," Jack interjected. So we picked out a strong looking brown horse. Without tack we clambered onto the horse's back and prayed he'd behave for us.

He did.

"Ready?" Jack breathed, his breath warming my neck. I sat in front of him. All four of our hands were scrunched up in the horse's mane.

"Wait." I kicked open the stable door so the other horses could follow us out and distract the guards. "Now!"

He nudged the horse forward and I could feel in the way his body moved against me that he was a professional around horses. His body language was taut, powerful and strong.

The rumbling of hooves was hard to ignore, and the guards all appeared in succession at the commotion of horses headed toward the front gate.

Jack took aim and fired. Of course the shot missed the guard - but they all ducked for cover, giving us an extra few seconds to gain distance.

But would it be enough?

The bullets rang out. How terrifying - being out in the open, no protection except speed and other animals to stop a bullet from reaching you.

Jack fired again and it hit its target as we galloped past. The guard slumped over, dead.

Just a few more feet until the gate -

"The gate's locked!" I screamed. The padlock slammed into view. We were leading a herd of well-trained horses right for a brick wall.

Jack shot at the guards again - missed - then turned and aimed for the gate.

"Three bullets," he said. "I only need one." He shot for the padlock - it missed.

"Looks like you need two," I said, and a bullet immediately whizzed into my thigh. I cried out in bitter, shocked laughter. Jack's arm wrapped around me to steady me as I doubled over, hand holding the sudden river of blood that gushed from my thigh.

He fired again - and the gate swung open seconds before our horse crashed through it. Then we were free, riding off into the desert, bullets and horses still whizzing behind us. Sure enough, a few horseback guards that had been patrolling the road outside the mansion followed us out onto the playa. If we didn't have a herd of clueless horses following us, we could have easily lost them.

"There's a canyon up ahead," I said through gritted teeth, my hand still pressing my thigh. "It'll be safer in there."

"Or we end this now," Jack said, taking a hard left to put a rock formation between us and our pursuers. He steered the horse up the steep slope, so that when the guards turned the corner, we would be well above them. The other horses continued running past, oblivious to our plan.

"One bullet," he breathed. "I need your help with this."

"How? With what?!"

"I need you to have my back as best you can, okay? Don't hesitate, just do. Do whatever you think you should. We've got this, don't we? Partner?" He looked into my face frantically and I nodded, mouth hanging open. _No, no, we don't got this!_

The guards turned the corner and Jack's gun fired before I even dared breathe. The man dropped from his horse - while the other two scrambled to put us in their cross-hairs. Jack leaped, landing on the men, pulling them from their horses. I nudged my horse forward and snatched the rifles from their saddles.

"Guns on the ground," I snarled between heavy breaths. The pain in my leg was astronomical and blinding and hard to talk through. Jack scrambled up, having wrestled a pistol away from one of them. He aimed it at their faces.

"Do as the lady says," he said.

The last guard with a gun threw his pistol aside. Jack dutifully collected it. The third man - the one who was shot - moaned and rolled, clutching his bleeding arm.

"Suck it up, Princess," I muttered. Pulling the lasso of rope from one of their saddles, I passed it to Jack, who hogtied them, ankle-to-wrists.

"Now we've got four horses," Jack said. "So which one would you like?"

I gestured to the white one wordlessly, taking the reins from him as he handed them to me. He tucked our new guns into the saddle holster - a shiny new rifle, and a pistol.

"It's been fun, boys," Jack said as he mounted a strong looking chestnut horse.

"But not nearly as much fun as you're going to have walking back to your _palacio_ without a horse _,"_ I said with a sneer.

He smacked the rump of the remaining horse - a palomino - who grunted and hurried off after the disappearing herd, now a mere cloud of dust on the horizon. We had three horses - the white, the chestnut, and the unsaddled brown one.

As we rode away from the hogtied men, I briefly thought of Sierra, again in a strange pen without me, before the pain in my leg was too much to bare.

"I can't ride anymore," I cried once we made it a few miles out. Thank God it was raining, or Jack would see the tears of pain and weakness.

"You need to. But let's move you to the saddled horse now that we're away from those guys, okay?" He dismounted and hurried over, holding his arms out to me.

I tried to use my thigh muscles to help swing my good leg over the horse's back, but it was too much. I cried out and Jack's hands busied themselves, rubbing my ankle and calf.

"Okay, okay," he soothed. "I'll do it. Less tension on the nerves that way."

 _"Dios mio,"_ I breathed through gritted teeth. _"_ _Joderme."_

"That's no way to speak," Jack murmured. He hooked his hands into my armpits and pulled my body onto his like I was a baby. I wrapped my arms around his neck.

"You can speak Spanish?" I asked. My chin was resting on his shoulder, my cheek pressed to his neck.

"No but I understand some of it. Just the good bits." His arms went to my legs now, lifting and pulling them so I was straddling his waist. Lucky I was a lot smaller then he was. He towered a good foot over me.

"The curses, you mean," I said breathlessly, trying hard as I could not to cry out.

"Like I said, the good bits." He brought me over to the white horse now. He hooked his hands together, forming a seat for me as I shifted my ass onto the saddle.

"It's not as surprising as finding out _you_ are Spanish. And your name is actually _Miranda_. And the _ex-President_ of the country wants you dead," I said. I swung my good leg over and he helped put by bad leg into its stirrup.

"I knew you were Spanish the minute I saw you. Only an idiot wouldn't. Then you spoke Spanish - often enough - and I kind of clued in you were running from something."

I looked at the saddle horn, feeling nothing but horrible and having nothing to say. Something shifted in the air.

"We don't have to talk about this," he said. "Let's just get back on track." His eyes seemed to avoid mine at all costs as he swung into his saddle. He led the unsaddled brown horse away, the lasso of rope snugly around his neck. We trekked a few miles, getting as much distance between us and the mansion as we could. Our plan was to wander just far enough away from the road to avoid being seen, but to still follow the road to a settlement for aid.

"I lied again," I breathed.

"No."

"I'm sor-,"

"Stop it Annabe- Mira-... What do I call you now?"

"I don't know," I said.

"Who do you want to be?"

I shrugged.

He was quiet. Then he said, "Who are you most comfortable being?"

"I don't know," I said again, voice shaking. "I don't want to be anyone."

"I know how tempting it is, to want to stop existing. But you need to fight. And I know you can. If you need to break down a little first, that's fine. But we're partners. So you need to decide."

"Annabelle," i murmured. "She's always been my protection."

"Then you're Annabelle. But remember that a name doesn't mean anything - she isn't real. You are." He paused. "And what you did, creating a new identity and hiding the old, that's not a lie," Jack insisted. "I know lies well. My father was a great liar. But that was no lie. I don't know the story - I don't want to know. But I pieced together enough to know it-it wasn't good, and you lost a lot of people. And- You were just protecting yourself. I know. It doesn't need to be explained."

My eyes suddenly felt wet, I was so glad. The rain had thoroughly drenched us by now so Jack did not have to see that I was crying. Hard. The tears were spilling in rapid succession, like a waterfall. How much it hurt to be back in Mexico... How much it hurt to see that man again... How much the Stinson encounter had destroyed any dignity I felt for myself, any pride.

Everything, everything was tainted.

But I looked at Jack and my lips perked in the tiniest of smiles because I felt-

"What is it?" he asked. He noticed me smiling.

"I didn't know you fell in the library deliberately," I said. "Not at the time."

"You liked that, did you? A little deception?" He exhaled, almost relieved. It sounded like _whew._

"It was brilliant, Jack. Have you considered the stage?"

His smile twisted, amused. "No. I'm just a good storyteller."

"You must like books then." For some reason he didn't answer and the look on his face was suddenly sour. I changed the subject. "Your acting was so brilliant. You said sorry like a totally pathetic hostage. I really believed it. But you hate sorry's and you're too proud for your own good. You wouldn't do that. You'd rather die over apologize like that. It's so obvious now that I'm thinking about it."

"Nothing is obvious when nobody knows you," he said.

"Well, I know you now," I said. "At least a little bit."

He never replied. We rode in silence. I applied a tourniquet to my wound, which staunched the bleeding but not the pain. I went between mewling and sniffling under my breath from the wound, and grinding my teeth in anger thinking about Stinson and how I'd decorate my new house with his intestines.

The hooves of our horses was the only sound for hours, crunching in the dry dirt of Mexico. The dry dirt. How could I forget how much I hated the dry dirt here. It only reminded me of how thirsty I was. How thirsty this whole land was.

"There," he said, pointing to the horizon. On a cliff overlooking the desert valley sat the unblinking white walls of Chuparosa. And I felt sick. Not just because of the blood loss, but because I had vivid memories of this place. Happier memories. Memories of riding in the back of my Father's wagon with Louisa and our dog, going to Chuparosa on a day trip.

Happy memories always taste the worst.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had my BF help me out with a few of these, and a few others are google, so accents/dialects must be all over the place. I apologize to all Spanish speakers for the massacre of their language.
> 
> No puedo hablar con eso ratta - I can't talk to that rat.
> 
> Vaja disfrutar enterrando a mis hijos - you will enjoy baring my sons.
> 
> Que es una cucaracha para un rey? - what is a cockroach to a king?
> 
> Un amante? - a lover?
> 
> Socio. - partner.
> 
> No Mexicana. - not Mexican.
> 
> Es el hijo de un asesino - he is the son of a killer.
> 
> Asesino? Estoy interesado. - killer? I'm interested.
> 
> Eres tan estupido como un perro - you are stupider then the dog.
> 
> Te voy a matar - I'm going to kill you.
> 
> Pudrete en el infierno - rot in hell.
> 
> Palacio - palace.
> 
> Dios mio - oh my God.
> 
> Joderme. - fuck me.
> 
> I also want to comment on the rape. Ohmygod. I felt sick writing it so I tried to put as little detail as possible. I still feel sick. I've never written rape before but I knew I wanted to tackle the issue eventually. I've never been raped (sexual assault tho? ✔) but it's something that really angers me about the world we live in. The absolute theft of someone's body autonomy... it's revolting. I hope it doesn't come off as cheap, because I want to address the lingering issues of rape in later chapters.

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote chapters one and two in 2011 and three in 2013, so please bare in mind my writing style has drastically improved since. Though it was revamped in early 2016, I still have issues with the plot and writing that I may get to at a later date.
> 
> Thank you for reading!


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